February 29, 2024 Show with Marcus Serven on “John Calvin in the Role of Pastor” (Part 2)

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I'm thrilled to have a returning guest who is going to be addressing part two of a topic that we launched into recently. I believe it was last month and or middle of the month somewhere. And we had so much information that we had to share the first time that we had to extend this to a two-part interview.

I am speaking of my guest Marcus Servin, pastor of Christian discipleship at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, which is a congregation within the Presbyterian Church in America, also known as the PCA.

Calvin’s Pastoral Ministry in Geneva

And today we're going to be addressing part two of John Calvin and the role of pastor. It's my honor and privilege to.

Welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Marcus Servin. Thanks a lot, Chris.

Great to be here. Well, why don't you tell our listeners, for the sake of those especially who missed our first interview, tell our listeners about Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Austin, Texas, and then also tell our listeners.

About the Genevan Foundation. Yeah, Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Austin. I came here about seven years ago to Austin after a long career in pastoral ministry, and my plan was to retire and to do what Calvin wanted to do, which was to write and disciple and do those kind of things.

And as I volunteered in service and teaching at Redeemer, then in pretty short order, the elders asked me to come out of retirement and to begin serving the church again, but this time just part-time.

And that's been really wonderful. It's a rich church in terms of liturgy, love of music, preaching of the Word, a church of about 500 members, so it is a downtown church, and we have all the complications of ministering to people in very liberal, progressive Austin, Texas.

But the church, I believe, is a good, light shining on the hill in proclaiming the gospel, holding to the inerrancy of the Scriptures, and also preaching and exalting the Reformed faith. So I'm very glad to be of service there.

Well, praise God. And if anybody is.

Either traveling through Austin, Texas, or if you live in Austin, Texas, or you have family, friends, and loved ones in Austin, Texas, you can go to the website to find out more about Redeemer Presbyterian Church there in Austin at RedeemerPres .org.

Now tell us about the Genevan Foundation. Sure.

Probably 20 years ago, my family, we have a large family, nine adult children now, and lots of grandkids coming our way, which is a great blessing. But we started singing the Psalms together, and so we started a little website where we offered the Psalms that we were singing and put on CDs and so forth.

Once the kids have grown, and now they're all grown up, I took over that website and turned it into a place for putting my writings on church history, especially writings about the Reformation. And the name, the Genevan Foundation, just simply symbolizes the fact that so much of what we believe and practice in the Protestant church today comes from the example of the church in Geneva, which was headed up by John Calvin.

And so there I've written lots of articles on different Reformers, different figures in American church history, and then a number of theological articles. Just recently, we launched a new endeavor at Redeemer Presbyterian called the Redeemer Theological Academy.

The elders very kindly appointed me the director of that, and so we are offering classes now, in-person classes, not online or anything like that, but in-person classes in theology, in church history, apologetics, biblical studies, and practical ministry.

Those are the five areas. So here we are in retirement, but still staying very, very busy.

Well, praise God, and if anybody wants to find out more about the Genevan Foundation, go to thegenevanfoundation .com, thegenevanfoundation .com. I also encourage everybody listening, after this live program is over, if you missed part one of our discussion on John Calvin and the role of pastor, and we never actually got into the specific aspect of Calvin as a pastor.

We were talking about Marcus's own personal salvation testimony and some background information about Calvin that was very important, but we never got into the depth of his role of pastor, which is our main theme, I should say.

But you could go into the Iron Trip and Zion Radio archive, irontripandzionradio .com, type in the name Servan, S-E-R-V as in Victor, E-N, Servan, and that interview on January 29th of 2024 will come up, and that is part one of this discussion.

So, bring us back to where you want to pick up the conversation. Marcus, if you want to give an overview of anything that we discussed in our first part of this discussion, you can do that, or just begin the.

Conversation wherever you want. Well, there's so much to say about John Calvin. I've been studying his life and ministry for over 40 years, and collecting all of his books, as well as books about him, I had a chance to write a dissertation on Calvin and his role as pastor, and that was a wonderful privilege to do so.

Something I've reminded the listeners about, that Calvin's personal motto was the following, Cor muam tibi offero domini prompt et sincere.

Yeah, that's the tattoo I have on my chest. I'm only kidding. Just kidding.

Well translated, it is, my heart I offer to you, Lord, promptly and sincerely. And so, we think about the man, John Calvin, who really only lived about 55 years. He died a few months prior to his 55th birthday, but the immense, indefatigable amount of work that he accomplished, not only in terms of preaching and teaching, but also in the writing of significant books like the Institutes of the Christian Religion, and all the practices that he established in his role as a pastor.

For example, in Geneva, in the worship there, you'll find a pattern for worship that has filtered down all the way to this current age, and many Reformed and Presbyterian churches of various stripes really have the roots of their worship service in the Geneva order of worship.

Beyond that, we see Calvin popularizing what we would call expository preaching. That kind of preaching was pretty well unknown prior to the times of Calvin. But we see a hunger in the people of God during the time of the Reformation for expositional teaching from the scriptures, line by line, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and that's exactly what Calvin popularizes and gives to people, so that people were like hungry folks who are ravenous for the Word of God, and that's one of the things that he did.

Another important aspect of Calvin's pastoral ministry is that he brought about the practice of the visitation of elders. The elders in the church in Geneva had the responsibility for overseeing the different families in their parish.

They had a parish system that would consist of any number of families, maybe 50 to 100 families, and those elders who were over that parish and the deacons were responsible to both be encouragers and also those who would hold people to the Christian faith and attendance at church and so forth, the catechism of their children and all of that.

So, these are all aspects of pastoral ministry that Calvin was very much a part of, and he didn't have the easiest time of bringing them about. There were lots of people who opposed Calvin at different points, especially a group in Geneva which became known as the Infants de Geneva, who were also known as the Libertines.

That would be their more common nomenclature of how they were known, but they were a group of people in Geneva made up of some of the principal families. They all assented to the affirmation of the doctrinal standards of the church in Geneva that Guillaume Farel, Calvin, and Pierre Viret, and other different reformers had brought to bear, but they weren't so keen on the transformation of morals and their way of life.

Geneva was a very cosmopolitan type of city. Every vice that you could possibly think of, you could easily find there. It was at the very end of Lake Le Mans or what later became known as Lake Geneva.

It was the gateway down into France, so there was a lot of trade, a lot of commerce that took place there, and it was quite a challenge for the reformers, in particular Calvin, to bring about a reformation time in the period of roughly 1541 all the way up to 1545 or 55, so roughly 14 years of challenging work turmoil at times when Calvin thought he was going to lose his position altogether and be thrown out of the city for a second time and at different points where they saw some gain, but it was a struggle during those 14 years in particular.

So I'm going to pick up right at that point, Chris, if you don't mind.

That'd be great.

Well, first of all, when Calvin came back to Geneva in 1541 in November, he had been exiled from Geneva along with Pharrell and various other pastors because they refused to celebrate the Lord's Supper in the Easter of 1538.

The city council was incensed by that, and they declared all the preachers, including Calvin, as persona non grata, and they had to leave. They gave him a very short window of time to get out of town.

But as those two and a half years went by, there were several situations that arose that made the Geneva City Council realize what a fool they were or what fools they were to get rid of Calvin. There was a letter, for example, from Cardinal Sattoletto, a Roman Catholic bishop and cardinal in Italy, who wrote to try to win the Genevan church back to Roman Catholicism.

Yeah, that correspondence is a very important event in history, actually, isn't it, with Calvin and Cardinal Sattoletto?

They couldn't find anyone in Geneva to answer Sattoletto. So eventually someone had the idea of sending his letter to Calvin, who at that time was minister in Strasbourg alongside of Martin Busser. And Calvin, in three days' time, wrote this brilliant response, which he sent back to Geneva, and they then forwarded that on to Sattoletto.

And the response of Calvin was so powerful in refuting the arguments that Sattoletto put forward that at that point, the people in Geneva realized they had to get John Calvin back. And so they began working to do that very thing.

By the way, I'm sorry I keep interrupting you, but can you remind our listeners why they refused to observe the Lord's table at Easter?

The reason why is that the town of Geneva had descended over many, many decades into a very despicable, violent, and immoral place. And the efforts of the reformers, Calvin and Farel and a few others, were not producing all the fruit that they had hoped.

And so they felt that it would be an offense to God to celebrate the Lord's Supper in April of 1538. And so they refused to do so to allow the people to receive the supper when there was a lack of repentance and a kind of a double-minded approach.

They would affirm doctrine, but they wouldn't change their lives. And that's what got them in trouble with the Geneva City Council.

So they even banned the Lord's table to those who were giving evidence of genuine saving faith and repentance and godliness. It was a universal thing that even Calvin himself didn't partake, right?

That's correct. They felt that it would have been an offense to God to have the people receive the supper when there was such a shabby standard of walking with Christ in the city of Geneva.

And I just wanted to quickly say, and then I'm not going to interrupt you so much anymore, this really is such glaring evidence against some of Calvinism's enemies. You know, you have enemies who are firing their weapons at Calvinism from all sides.

Some who actually believe, or should I say, declare slanderously that Calvinism teaches a work's righteousness, which is utterly absurd. But there are those on the other side of the spectrum, including a world-famous Calvary Chapel-affiliated pastor and preacher, Raul Ruiz, who, I don't know if he's changed his opinion since then, but I can remember vividly him saying on his program, there are people out there who believe you can live like the devil your whole life and you'll still go to heaven when you die.

That's not in the Bible, man. John Calvin made that up, man. And obviously, Raul Ruiz had never read a single sentence by John Calvin because he never would have come to the conclusion he did otherwise.

And what you just said about the banning of the Lord's Supper that Easter because of the lack of repentance on the majority of the populace of Geneva is glaring evidence that Calvin took a holy life very seriously.

That's right. Let me just read a list of different problems that were evident in Geneva that the Reformers, notably Calvin, were trying to deal with. One was excessive drunkenness. Secondly, the abundance of taverns all over town.

Not that Calvin was against having wine or some other brewed beverage. He was never against that, but there were people who abused that whole aspect of life and that was a serious problem. There was the Roman Catholic view of holidays, which turned them into great feasting times, nothing against feasts, but the idea that they were also idolatrous in the way that they were practiced, an abundance of gambling, morality plays that were popular at that time at the later ends of the medieval age.

There were sensual dances that took place, prostitution, divorce and remarriage that was unscriptural. There was an abundance of superstition. I mean, these were just some of the issues that Calvin and the Reformers were trying to deal with in Geneva.

One of the ways that they tried to deal with this right off is that Calvin came up with a plan. His plan was called the ecclesiastical ordinances. Basically, it just meant the way in which the church was going to work.

How are they going to work their plan? One of the things that he tried to do in particular was to bring about regular preaching of the word and a regular observance of the Lord's Supper that in time became the regular practice in Geneva.

It took a while to get there, but he wanted to get the city because the whole city was expected to be a part of the church on a regular basis, not just individual Christians or individual families here or there, but the entire city.

That was the understanding at that time. In coming up with this plan, he set certain things in motion. One of those was the establishment of a consistory. That would be the idea of having not only the ministers of the church, some of the ruling elders, some of the fathers of the city council, and also some of the magistrates of the city council all meeting together on Thursdays to deal with areas that were problems in the life of different individuals.

Let's say, for example, that there was a husband who was abusing his wife and his children and that would come to the attention of the elders. They would seek to reason with a man following the practice of Matthew 18.

If there was no repentance, then they would go in two or three members, and if no repentance, they would tell it to the church, which involved going to the consistory that met every Thursday and calling such a person who was abusing his family to report to them.

They would exhort him by scripture, and there also would be a close relationship between the church and the civil authorities. That's a little different today where we have a much clearer separation of powers, but at that time, in the 1500s, there was a much closer relationship between church and state or the civil authorities, and so the establishment of a consistory was an important aspect for discipline.

There also was the recognition that there needed to be regular preaching, and so orderly times of preaching were established in the church, not only on the Lord's Day, twice on the Lord's Day, usually a morning and an afternoon service, but also midweek services.

And so Calvin and the reformers in Geneva established a time of coming to worship on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. As time went along, that expanded out. Those weren't obligatory services, but they were additional services where people could come and sit under the preaching of the Word, and they could learn what it meant to be free in Christ and to be one who is pardoned and freed from the guilt of sin, what it meant to be a Christian, what it meant to lead a Christian life.

I mean, these were all important aspects in the life in Geneva. That's why you see on the monument to the Reformation the words, post-tenebrous lux.

Not a darkness light.

After darkness, light. Yeah, that the gospel was making such an impact in the lives of the people in Geneva that they were beginning to see to what degree they had been living in darkness under the Roman Catholic system and how they needed to come out from it.

Well, let me tell you a little bit more about some of the struggles that Calvin had. There were a number of individuals who gave him much grief through the life of his life and his ministry. In particular, there were some who sought to attack him in a straightforward manner.

And just challenging him in public debate that didn't always go over so well because one, Calvin had such an incredible memory that he was able to bring up scripture citations and citations from the early church fathers, as well as a very broad range of reading that he had accomplished and a remarkable memory for citing lengthy passages.

And so he was able to defeat many of his opponents who came against him. And then there were more sneaky opponents, in particular, the Libertines, who always seem to try to get under the skin of Calvin by calling him insulting names, by floating various lies and various innuendos around.

There was one time in 1547, if I have the date right, when there was a plague in Geneva and there were lots of people who were dying. Some of Calvin's friends encouraged him to leave Geneva, which he never would do.

He refused to do so. But there were some people who tried to essentially kill him at that point. They would take some of the body fluids or bodily fluids from some of those who had died in the plague, and they would go and wipe those over the door of his house and over the doorknobs to try to kill him, he and his family.

Wow.

It was a very shocking display of wickedness. But you can see the way that people would descend to such levels of depravity to try to undo him or to take him off of the scene.

Now, the Libertines, as we, I believe, brought up the last time, just so our listeners, especially that are hearing this for the first time, they very much fit the description that the aforementioned Raul Ruiz slanderously gave to Calvinism.

They did believe that you could live like the devil your whole life and go to heaven. Isn't that right?

Well, in many ways, because they had grown up in the Roman Catholic system where there was no real sense of assurance, you would seek to live a holy life by participating in the life of the church, in particular, receiving the sacraments, of which there were seven, so they would try to receive as many of them as possible.

And each of those sacraments that they could receive would give an element of grace, almost like a substance that you would try to collect in an empty jar. And the hope was that by participating in the life of the church, by deeds of penance, that they would accumulate enough grace so that when they died, they would only have to have a short time in purgatory.

Or perhaps if they had enough people praying for them and enough appeals made to the saints and to the Virgin Mary, they might be able to get enough grace to go straight into the of God, into heaven, and to experience the beatific vision.

That was the hope and the goal. But the problem with Roman Catholic theology is that it's all based upon non-scriptural ideas, the traditions of men. And as a result, as the true gospel kept being preached, there were a group of people who took offense at that.

It's exactly what Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 2, that spiritual truth is spiritually discerned. And these people couldn't discern what Calvin and the other Reformers were saying, and so they were opposed to it.

And so they sought to take the Reformer down.

In fact, pick up where you left off when we return from our first commercial break. If you'd like to join us with a question of your own, send it to chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

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So go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with Marcus Service and we are discussing the past role of John Calvin and we were in the midst of a clarification and identification of the Libertines and what.

Calvin, the Libertines, and Church Discipline

Stood for if you want to pick up where you left off, brother. Yeah, happy to. The Libertines, as I mentioned, were the spiritual opponents of Calvin and they sought to do him a lot of damage. But it's good to remember something that Calvin wrote about conflict.

He said, even a dog will fight for his master when threatened. How much more should I fight for the word of God? Amen. And I think that's a wonderful statement or testimony to the determination that Calvin had to keep moving forward, to keep his plan that he had established in mind in the ecclesiastical ordinances, and to trust God for the results.

I wanted to read just for a moment one quote from Charles Bridges who wrote a masterful book on Christian ministry and in that book he gives this testimony to the labors of Calvin. And so just listen to this summary of what Calvin did throughout his ministry and his life.

This is Charles Bridges saying, what shall we say of Calvin's indefatigable industry, even beyond the power of nature, which being paralleled with our loitering, I fear will exceed all credit and may be a true object of admiration how his lean, worn, spent, and weary body could possibly hold out.

He read every week in the year three divinity lectures and every other week over and above. He preached at times over every day so that Erasmus said of Chrysostom, I do not know whether more to admire the indefatigableness of the man or his hearers.

Yea, some have reckoned up that Calvin's lectures were yearly 186, his sermons 286. Besides Thursday, he sat in the Presbytery and the Consistory. Calvin's own account in one of his letters to Pharrell thus speaks, when the messenger called for my book, the Commentary on Romans, which was his first commentary, I had 20 sheets to revise.

I had to preach, to read to the congregation, to write 42 letters, and attend to some controversies and return answers to more than 10 persons who had interrupted me in the midst of my labors for advice.

Well, that's a picture of the busyness.

Of John Calvin. What do you think of that, Chris? I'm blown away, and it's also, whenever I hear about a great saint of God, especially from history past, but even from today, whose life and knowledge and accomplishments and legacy is far greater than I will ever leave to anyone I know, and these individuals, some of these individuals, went home to be with the Lord at a far younger age than I am currently at right now.

Calvin was seven years younger than me. Not past, and went home to be with the Lord at 29, and how he accomplished for the Lord infinitely more than I will ever accomplish, and it's just, it can be embarrassing, but these kinds of things propel us and challenge us to be better servants of Christ.

Absolutely. I think of it as just the issue of humility, and I'm humbled by their example, and I've lived longer than a lot of these guys, and I wish there were times and seasons when I would have been much more productive, that's for sure.

Well, a little bit more about Calvin's pastoral ministry. He believed very strongly that the church was typified by three marks. He called these the note ecclesia, and the first was that there would be a fervent preaching of the Word of God.

That was his commitment, to make sure that the Word of God was proclaimed from week to week, and even day to day in his lectures. Secondly, he believed a mark of the church was the proper observance of the sacraments, of which all Protestants would believe that there are two that the Lord has enumerated for us in the church, and that is baptism and the Lord's supper.

Thirdly, Calvin implied a third mark, which was later popularized by John Knox, who was one of the students of John Calvin in the Geneva Academy and his times of lecturing, and that was the idea of discipline of the church.

You have the preaching of the Word, the proper administration of the sacraments, the discipline of the believer. So when we think about the church today, and what church should we be a part of or even consider joining?

Well, it seems to be those three marks in particular have to be at the forefront of our minds as to where we're going to settle, where we're going to know we'll be spiritually nurtured, and that was Calvin's desire as well to make sure that in Geneva all of that happened.

Now, one of the ways that Calvin sought to make it come about was through the offices of the church, or you could even say certain officers within the church, and he recognized that there were four basic offices.

There were pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons, those four. Now, in a lot of Reformed and Presbyterian churches, we'll have pastors, we'll have deacons, we'll have elders, and sometimes the elders also include those who are in the pastoral role, all of them being elders but simply having a different calling per se in terms of time and commitments to the church.

But Calvin saw these four offices as a scriptural structure that gave direction and guidance to the church, and kind of unique was this issue of the teacher. The teacher did not have the responsibility of leading worship or administering the sacraments, but they were to be involved in the proclamation of the gospel and the exposition of Holy Scripture on a regular basis so that every church had someone who was particularly gifted in that area to not only write but also to teach for the advancement of maturity in the church, and so that was one of the things that Calvin was very much involved in.